The Charade We Nigerians Call Love

By Moon6eam

On weddings, wallets, and the performative chaos of Nigerian romance

Nigerian romantic relationships are a performative shitshow. I’ve never dated a foreigner, so I can’t compare, but what we’re practicing here seems like a cheap imitation—a carefully choreographed performance where everyone knows their lines, but nobody means what they’re saying. All surface, no depth.

You want proof? Look at weddings.

I had a conversation with a friend who didn’t understand why weddings are so expensive. Many men wouldn’t have them if they could, he said—they’re simply doing it for their partners. My response was simple: “The reason many women want elaborate weddings is that they aren’t paying for them.”

As a young girl, weddings never appealed to me. But they appealed to every girl I knew. They wanted it all: the white dress flowing as they walked down the aisle, the colorful displays of light glimmering across the hall, the diamond ring shining from a mile away. It didn’t matter that it sounded ridiculously expensive; what mattered was the dream.

I had attended weddings, and I didn’t like them very much. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to go through that much stress for a single day. For what exactly? To please people you didn’t really know? People who, for the most part, only come to eat the rice and cake that you’ve prepared with your own money. Many don’t even come bearing gifts. However, my opinion at the time wasn’t fully grounded because I was simply a girl who hated girl stuff, including weddings.

As an adult who now hears men complain about the cost of Nigerian weddings, my question is: Why can’t you tell your soon-to-be wife you can’t afford it? What’s the point of holding a ceremony where your needs are entirely disregarded? Why can’t you just stand your ground?

The answer is simple. Standing your ground means the dynamic has to change. Are men willing to do that? Stay with me.

As a woman in Nigeria, I’ve always been courted by men—even when I didn’t consider myself beautiful. I’m not new to the charade. When a typical Nigerian man meets me, he’s hardly thinking of getting to know me. He comes with the intent to use his money to win my acceptance, primarily for sex.

It goes like this: A man approaches me and collects my number. I tell him I’m not interested. Instead of accepting rejection, he starts dishing out incentives as if I were a rat in a laboratory. No data to browse the internet? He offers to send some. Haven’t eaten dinner? He offers to buy food. One time, I couldn’t go to my SIWES site because I was broke, so one of these men drove to my house and gave me cash. He did this because I wouldn’t send him my account number.

Many such cases.

These dynamics don’t change in relationships. They have to keep doling out financial incentives to keep her. What do they get in return? A woman who expects everything to fall at her feet because she’s never had to do anything special to get his attention—she just had to exist. She doesn’t care when he lacks the means to keep up the charade he started. This is why many men are terrified of being outdone by other men.

That’s why, when men grumble, “Women are too materialistic. Women don’t understand men. Women don’t care about men,” my question is, who created this dynamic? Women have expectations, sure. We can debate how reasonable they are, but they exist. When a man portrays himself as the financial messiah of all expectations, she simply accepts him. Why wouldn’t she? She’s only playing by the rules.

This is why women dream of their weddings. They know they don’t have to care about the expenses. Their men will do it. It’s an age-old culture that permeates most Nigerian relationships, including your parents’. As much as men complain, they’re doing nothing to change it. Their defense? They won’t get as many women.

Charade, by definition, describes pretense. So, why are men pretending? Because they don’t want to be vulnerable. Vulnerability means exposure to harm. It means risking being told, “I see you, but you are not enough.” Money acts as a filler, sidestepping this risk entirely.

On Twitter, men talk about how inconsiderate their women become once money is out of the equation. What they don’t understand is that by leaning into the charade, they’ve ignited women’s appetite for the finer things in life. How do you tell a woman who knows what she can get by smiling at men to stop smiling? She also knows that if one man says no, another will bow at her feet.

But when the money is stripped away, what’s left? A man whose entire sense of worth is dependent on the size of his purse. Money stays at the center because it makes it easier for both men and women to play pretend. He doesn’t have to reveal the parts of himself that might disappoint her. She doesn’t have to be anything except aesthetically pleasing. Both parties understand what’s being exchanged, so no one asks difficult questions. They move with the flow and call it love.

What a way to live.

The Feminist Problem

But here’s what really gets me: feminists who participate (or hope to one day) in this performance while claiming they want something better.

At a CDS meeting during my service year, I asked this question: If you out-earn your man, would you pay the rent? Most women, especially the feminists, said they’d never do it. Apparently, their money was their money. His was theirs. The irony was staggering.

Let’s not forget that, just as women have expectations, men do too. When they spend money on you, they expect you to respond like a typical woman—subservient, tolerant, and endlessly grateful. The dynamic is clear: you’re there for his pleasure. His wallet opens the doors to both your legs and heart. It’s not ridiculous that he expects you to accept his disrespect wholeheartedly. If I were bankrolling a man, I would expect the same.

Feminists generally argue against this type of relationship dynamic, which is why it’s surprising to see many of them condone it. It is understandable for traditional women, but incredibly ironic for feminists. You simply can’t have your cake and eat it, too. If you want a man who does everything for you—including paying for that extravagant dream wedding you’ve been planning since childhood—you can’t expect him to consider you an equal, truly. Unless you’re contributing something comparable, he sets the terms.

These terms depend entirely on his generosity. And for Nigerian men, those terms usually mean cooking, cleaning, and turning the other way to cheating. Yet, based on online gender discourse, many feminists reject this role. So, why accept the dynamic in the first place? Why let money back you into a corner you don’t want to stand in?

If more Nigerian feminists reject this absurdity, what does that actually mean?

It means that relationships become about building something together. It means accepting that men can be vulnerable, without women getting the “ick.” It means money returns to its rightful place—a tool for building a life. Is this possible? I believe so. It all starts by genuinely unlearning what we know about gender roles and starting afresh. This would mean that if I told a man I didn’t like him, he would stop treating me like a lab rat. When a woman meets a man for the first time, she wouldn’t accord him the same role as that of an ATM.

Perhaps I’m being too optimistic.

I understand that gender roles are challenging to unlearn. How do you truly unlearn something that seems to work just fine? Most people don’t actually want new relationship models; they want the benefits of both old and new systems without any sacrifice. That’s why the courts, the churches, and the mosques will remain filled with people getting married every weekend. People will still go above and beyond for their weddings.

If we want a truly beneficial system, we need to stop lying to ourselves. Honesty demands that we examine the system, accept it as it is, and stop whining about it. Or critically examine it so we can build something genuine. This means that men will stop using their wallets to replace genuine connection, and women will stop accepting the trade. No more sneaking bites of cake while complaining it’s getting smaller.

It’s all up to us. But if I’m being honest? Most Nigerians prefer the charade.